After this limited success, he did three short adaptations of Hasek's
famous classic The Good Soldier Sweik(1954) which made Trnka
loved by the whole nation at last. But he was still looking for an
internationally known classic story where he could speak to the audience
using his art. He was a kind of Renaissance man unfortunately born
in the wrong time and wrong country. But in 1955 he started and in
1959 he finished his masterpiece, the wide screen puppet feature film
The Midsummer Night's Dreamand -- it failed. Both abroad and
at home too. Even -- or because -- this adaptation of Shakespeare
contains Trnka's entire opinions and esthetic notions about a puppet
film. The elements he used were: an internationally known story, a
carefully prepared screenplay (co-writer J. Brdecka), perfect characters
and brilliant puppet animation, not too much dialogue and only a few
lines of narration from time to time. Trnka never allowed lip-synch,
he thought it was barbaric for puppets-sculptures-subjects of art
to be treated in this manner. Music was always preferred to the spoken
word. He often discussed his projects with the composer (V.Trojan)
before he beginning work on a screenplay. When the musical score was
composed before the animation and he liked it -- he would even change
his animation arrangement to fit the music. I think it is obvious
why his Dreamfailed by most of journalists abroad and by ordinary
adult audience too: they felt themselves lost in the picturesque
but intricate story. I'm afraid they were not prepared for it. Trnka
was strongly criticized at home as creating l'art pour l'art (art
for art's sake) and loosing touch with the working class. Let's see
the film today! Not on TV but on the wide screen at the cinema as
it was intended and created by its creator to be. Trnka shot the film
with two parallel cameras (classic and wide screen format which was
a novelty at that time) because he did not believe in "compositions
seen through a mailbox slot." Thus he created gorgeous work.

A reception of The Dreamwas a great disappointment for Trnka,
he worked for years on it. Days and nights were spent in shooting,
with everybody sleeping in the studio. It cost him his health but
he was a strong man and a workaholic. He went back to his book illustrating,
painting and sculpture but in the next few years he made another four
short puppet films: The Passion(1961), The Cybernetic Grandma(1962),
The Archangel Gabriel and Lady Goose after Boccacio(1964) and
the classic The Hand (1965).

The HandThe last of Trnka's films, The Hand, was an unexpected and surprising
break in his work thus far. It was something completely new in content
and form. The Handis a merciless political allegory, which
strictly follows story outline without developing lyrical details
as usual; it had a strong dramatic arc with deep catharsisin
the end. Trnka had used a combination of his typical funny-foolish
but undefeated, ordinary man puppet as the protagonist and a live-action
human hand (naked or in gloves) as the despotic antagonist. When The
Handwas released it was officially declared as Trnka's criticism
of the Cult of Personality (Stalin), but for all people, it was an
alarming allegory of human existence in a totalitarian society. The
film had the strong up-to-date story about the Artist and the omnipresent
Hand, which only allowed the Artist to make sculptures of the Hand
and nothing else. The Artist was sent to a prison for his disobedience
and pressed to hew a huge sculpture of the Hand. When the omnipresent
Hand caused the Artist's death, the same Hand organizes the artist's
State funeral with all artists honoured. Trnka, for the first time,
openly expressed his opinion about his own inhuman totalitarian society.
The Handwas one of the first films that helped to open the
short Prague's Spring. It is curious that Trnka predicted his own
fate in it. When Jiri Trnka died in November 1969 (at only 57 years
of age), he had a State funeral with honours. Only four months later,
The Handwas banned; all copies were confiscated by the secret
police, put in a safe and the film was forbidden for screening for
next twenty years. A seventeen minute long puppet film intimidated
the unlimited power of the Totalitarian State. In the 1970s and 80s,
we already could find many such examples: films by Jan
Svankmajer at the time. The importance of gifted and intelligent
animation for an adult audience will never fade. I am sure if Trnka's
film The Handwas seen by people in any totalitarian country
today, it would help them to believe, as it helped us to believe:
We shall overcome! And we did.